Article: 1952473 of alt.religion.scientology
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: the Dave, Bob, and Chuck radio show (KCOL)
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
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Date: 13 May 2006 04:22:18 -0400
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Wednesday morning (May 10, 2006) I received a phone call from a
producer at KCOL, a Clear Channel radio station in Ft. Collins,
Colorado. They were doing a Scientology show and wanted me to appear
as a guest. The original plan was to do three segments, 10-15 minutes
each, half an hour apart. The first guest was to be Bob Adams, who is
this month's official spokesdroid for the Church of Scientology
International. He has apparently replaced Ed Parkin, who in turn
replaced the prickly and wonderfully inept Linda Simmons Haight.
An interesting side note about Bob Adams: he is a former VP of ABLE
INT who was "disappeared" from the ABLE web site after he verbally
threatened Pamela Lichtenwalner over her anti-Narconon work, which
resulted in her filing a police report. Details here:
http://stop-narconon.org/Bob-Adams
The second guest was to be Chuck Beatty, who spent 27 years in the Sea
Org, and the third guest was going to be me. While chatting with the
producer, I started warning her about all the lies that Scientology
tells the media (e.g., that they have 10 million members, they're
compatible with Catholicism, they never heard of "Xenu", etc.)
As a result of this conversation, they changed the lineup. They
decided to have me on much earlier, to set things up. Then they'd
have Bob Adams on at his scheduled time, and see how well I had
predicted what he was going to say. And then Chuck would go. So
that's what we did.
Here's what I covered:
- 10 million members is a lie; the real number is under 100,000
- Scientology is not just a cult, it's an ABUSIVE cult (with a
quick explanation of the characteristics of abusive cults)
- compatibility with Catholicism is a lie; reincarnation is heresy
to the Catholic Church, and Hubbard said "there was no Christ"
- Quick summary of Scientology beliefs: (1) you need therapy for
all the bad stuff that's happened to you from the moment of
conception onward; (2) you're an immortal being and need therapy
for all the bad stuff that's happened to you in all your past lives,
too -- and you have to pay by the hour; (3) you're possessed by the
spirits of murdered space aliens, called "body thetans", and they
need therapy too.
- Quick summary of the Xenu story the cult's attempts to suppress
it, and the fact that I have the first page of OT III in L. Ron
Hubbard's own handwriting up on my web site at Carnegie Mellon,
- If I had a chance to ask Bob Adams two questions, what would they be?
Answer: (1) When are you guys going to stop lying about Scientology
being compatible with Christianity, and (2) When are you going to
stop lying about Xenu and talk openly about what you believe?
- I ended my segment in the traditional way: with a plug for XENU.NET.
About an hour later it was time for Bob Adams. They asked him a bunch
of questions based on my segment, and what was interesting was the way
he dialed back his answers compared to the usual Scientology canned PR
lines.
For example, they asked him how many members the church had, and he
said about 10 million, but it was hard to get an exact number because
it was based in part on how many people had bought books. (A tougher
interviewer would have jumped on this and said "You mean anyone who
buys a copy of Dianetics is considered a Scientologist? So if I buy a
copy of DSM 4, does that make me a psychiatrist?")
Then they asked him if Scientology was compatible with Catholicism,
and he did a major waffling job, sort of but not really conceding that
different religions have different belief systems and the two weren't
really compatible.
They they asked him about "space aliens", and he said something really
surprising. He claimed that the critics had confused Zeno, an ancient
Greek philosopher, with some of Hubbard's science fiction writings,
and that's where this "Zeno story" comes from; it wasn't really part
of Scientology.
Wow!!!! It looks like Scientology has come up with a new shore story
for its pre-OT members who encounter the Xenu stuff: it's just part of
a smear campaign invented by confused wogs.
If the hosts were more confrontational, they would have asked Bob
Adams why Scientology sued Karin Spaink and Arnie Lerma for copyright
violations over the OT III document which tells the story of Xenu. I
had briefed them on this earlier that morning. But they weren't
interested in giving him a hard time; they just wanted to let him do
his PR thing, and they'd dissect it later.
Most of the rest of Adams' segment was spent talking about
Scientology's good works, e.g., literacy programs, drug rehab, etc.
Then Chuck Beatty came on and talked about some of his experiences,
including spending 7 years on the RPF, which he described as a kind of
Scientology prison. He rambled a bit, but also got in some good
material. He mentioned me by name, and the hosts said they'd be
talking with me in the next segment. (They apparently forgot that
they'd already done my segment about 90 minutes before. Just another
screw-up of the sort that happens when you do live radio. I spoke
with the producer again afterwards to verify.)
Next the hosts discussed their impressions of their guests. They said
Bob Adams came off as "hinky", untrustworthy, and obviously engaged in
spin control. Chuck struck them as someone who was still coping with
the damage caused by spending 27 years as a cultist.
Finally they took a few callers. There were at least two, and
possibly three. None of them had anything good to say about
Scientology. If CoS had any shills lined up, they didn't make it onto
the air.
And thus ended another fine day of entheta. This was my fifth radio
appearance of 2006. I did eleven shows in 2005, so it looks like the
stats are trending upwards. No grey rag for me!
I like Bob Adams as the new official CSI chew toy. I'd sure like a
chance to go one-on-one live with him, but I don't think he'll be
allowed to do that. Pity.
No wonder Scientology hates the Internet.
-- Dave Touretzky: "Xenu's paradox: Scientology is a science AND
a religion!"
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets